Fire Destroys Cantonment Mobile Home
July 30, 2012
A family was left homeless after fire destroyed a mobile home in Cantonment Sunday afternoon.
Firefighters were called to the double-wide trailer in the 700 block of Robinson Street about 4:30 p.m. They arrived to discover that the mobile home on the narrow dirt lane had already burned to the ground before the fire was reported.
There were no injuries reported.
The cause of the blaze is under investigation by the Florida State Fire Marshal’s Office. The Cantonment, Molino, Beulah and Ensley stations of Escambia Fire Rescue responded to the blaze, along with Escambia County EMS.
The American Red Cross was called to provide temporary assistance to those left homeless by the fire.
Pictured: A mobile home in Cantonment burned to the ground before firefighters were called Sunday afternoon. NorthEscambia.com reader submitted photo, click to enlarge.
Olympics: Men’s Cycling (With NorthEscambia Photo Gallery)
July 30, 2012
In the men’s cycling road race at the London 2012 Olympic Games, Team USA’s Taylor Phinney (Boulder, Colo.) narrowly missed a podium finish as he place fourth.
A Molino family living in England was there for the men’s cycling road race with photos for NorthEscambia.com. To view the photo gallery, click here.
The gold medal went to Alexandr Vinokurov of Kazakhstan, who out-duelled Rogoberto Uran Uran of Colombia after the two had broken away from the lead pack in the final few kilometers. Alexander Kristoff of Norway edged Phinney at the front of the lead pack to win the bronze medal.
Tyler Farrar (Wenatchee, Wash.) finished 32nd, while Timmy Duggan (Nederland, Colo.) faded from second place earlier in the race to finish 87th. Chris Horner (San Diego, Calif.) ended up in 92nd place.
Pictured above and inset: The men’s cycling road race as seen from The Mall outside Buckingham Palace during the London 2012 Olympic Games. Pictured below: Team USA’s vehicle. NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.
Powered By Chocolate Milk: Run Across Four States For Pensacola Lighthouse
July 30, 2012
A New Orleans man — powered by chocolate milk — has completed a run from New Orleans to Pensacola to raise money for the Pensacola Lighthouse.
Billed as the ‘Krewe du Shoe’ Run, long distance runner George Melichar averaged 60 miles per day to cover the 230 mile distance in four days. Along the way, he could be seen refueling with chocolate milk — one of his run sponsors.
In addition to raising money for the restoration of the Pensacola Lighthouse, Melichars run honored the children attending the Salvation Center School in Siem Reap, Cambodia.
“My passion for running in New Orleans has lead me to serve my community by aiding in recovery.” says Melichar, “As I have traveled the world running marathons, I have come to appreciate the city landmarks, the neighborhoods I run through, and the residents’ enthusiasm as I run pass.”
While the final tally was not immediately available, Melichars goal was to raise $800,000 needed to repoint or restore the weathered masonry in this historical lighthouse tower to ensure it is around for future generations.
“I also hope that by helping to preserve this historical landmark with my four-state run I will also generate attention to the beauty and tourism opportunities available to Gulf Coast visitors.”
To donate or learn more about the Pensacola lighthouse, visit www.pensacolalighthouse.org.
Pictured top: Long distance runner George Melichar on Pensacola NAS near the lighthouse. Pictured inset: Melichar’s run was fueled by chocolate milk. Pictured below: Melichar reaches the Pensacola Lighthouse. Submitted photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enalrge.
Warrington Tax Office Reopens
July 30, 2012
The Escambia County Tax Collector office reopens on Monday on North Navy Boulevard. The branch was closed since June 11 due to flooding.
After the Warrington office closed, the Cantonment tax collector office on Highway 29 was closed and moved to Molino.
The Warrington tax collector office is located at 507 North Navy Boulevard, while the Molino office is located at 6440 Highway 95A. Both offices are open Monday-Friday from 8 a.m. until 4:30 p.m.
Man Sentenced For Stealing 54,884 Gallons Of Diesel Fuel
July 30, 2012
A man accused of stealing 54,884 gallons of diesel fuel over a two year period from his employer has been sentenced.
Dennis Lawson pleaded no contest to a charge of grand theft for stealing the fuel, valued at an estimated $179,705. He was sentenced to three years probation, mandatory anti-theft counseling, 100 hours of community service and restitution.
Florida Rock and Tank Lines hired a private investigator after they noticed discrepancies and then turned their information over to the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office. Sheriff’s investigators later observed Lawson pump two 55-gallon drums of diesel fuel that he transported to a self-storage unit to be sold at a lower cost to others.
Lawson was a 26-year employee of the company.
Report: Florida Trailing Most States In Kids’ Health, Education
July 30, 2012
A new report shows Florida trailing most other states in the health and education of its children – with an especially low ranking in economic well-being.
The effects are harmful and could be long-term – not just for the children but for the state, advocates say.
The annual Kids Count report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation ranks Florida 44th in the economic well-being of its children, 38th in their health outcomes and 35th in their educational performance.
The state ranks 38th overall.
The number of Florida children living in poverty is up 28 percent from 2005 to 2010, the last year for which data were included in the study. That measurement considers such factors as whether the parents have secure employment or the ability to cover their housing costs.
Ted Granger, president of the United Way of Florida, said he wasn’t surprised by the ranking given the need local agencies are seeing.
Economic instability is “having a huge and dramatic effect on children,” Granger said. “The largest group of new homeless are single parents with children. These children, whether or not homeless or in poverty, are part of a group that statistically we know have worse health care outcomes [and] lack the educational opportunities to realize their full potential.”
In 2010, 23 percent of Florida children were living in poverty. The parents of 34 percent lacked secure employment, up from 28 percent in 2008. Nearly half of Florida households – 49 percent – saw their housing costs grow to 30 percent or more, up from 42 percent in 2005. The number of teens who were neither in school nor working was 10 percent, the same as in 2008.
In all these categories, Florida’s stats were worse than the national average.
“I think it’s a ticking time bomb,” said Roy Miller, president of the Children’s Campaign in Florida. “Children are exposed now in much larger numbers to poverty and all of its ill effects. So what’s going to happen to those children five years, 10 years, [or] 15 years down the road? We don’t know.”
Susan Weitzel, Florida Kids Count director, said the state’s children are growing up with risk factors that predict they will not succeed in Florida’s future economy.
“When children are going to school hungry and do not know if they have a place to sleep at night, how can they be successful in the classroom?” she asked in a statement about the report.
David Wilkins, secretary of the Florida Department of Children and Families, agreed that his agency is seeing poor children at risk for future difficulties.
“When you see children in poverty over time, you may see them in other parts of the system, such as [the Department of Juvenile Justice] system or child welfare system,” he said. “That’s what we always have to be careful about and watch.
“The other thing that’s in our state that a lot of other states aren’t facing to anywhere the same level is the substance abuse and prescription drug problem,” Wilkins added. “That’s also crossing across that same demographic.”
But while Wilkins said he wasn’t surprised by the findings, he pointed out that the report’s 2010 economic data don’t include Gov. Rick Scott’s job-creating efforts. Scott was inaugurated in January 2011.
“The issue of poverty in the state is driven almost entirely by the economic situation of jobs and the housing market,” Wilkins said. “That’s why the citizens elected this governor…In the past year, we’ve reduced unemployment in Florida another two percentage points.
“So I think we’re heading in the right direction.”
And the Kids Count report did have some good news for Florida. The number of uninsured children has dropped slightly, to half a million. Students are doing a bit better in reading and math, although still below the national average.
According to the Kids Count findings, while Florida ranked 44th among the states in terms of economic well-being, it was 38th overall, with better outcomes in four other areas.
The state ranked 35th in education. The number of Florida children not attending preschool in 2008-2010 was 51 percent, compared to 52 percent in 2005-2007. The number of high school students not graduating on time was 31 percent in 2008-2009, an improvement from 36 percent in 2005-2006. In two categories with 2011 data, 65 percent of fourth graders were not proficient in reading, compared to 70 percent in 2005, and 72 percent of eighth graders were not proficient in math, a slight improvement from 74 percent in 2005.
In children’s health, Florida ranked 38th. In 2010, I3 percent of Florida kids lacked health insurance, compared to 18 percent in 2008 – although still below the national average of 8 percent. In 2009, child and teen deaths slowed to 29 per 100,000, down from 37 percent in 2005. The numbers of teens abusing alcohol and drugs dropped from 8 percent in 2005-2006 to 7 percent in 2008-2009. The number of low birth-weight babies stayed at 8.7 percent over the same period, compared to the national average of 8.2 percent.
Florida ranked 35th in the family and community category, with 39 percent of children living in single-parent families in 2010 – up from 36 percent in 2005. Between 2000 and 2010, the number of children living in high-poverty neighborhoods grew from 7 to 8 percent. Teen births per 1,000 dropped from 42 in 2005 to 39 in 2009. Between 2005 and 2010, the number of children in families where the head of household lacked a high school diploma dropped from 15 to 14 percent.
For children’s advocate Miller, the improvements are welcome but frustrating, since they show where the state has invested money successfully.
“And I think that’s the frustration of the child advocacy community,” he said. “Why don’t we make the investments in all the areas that need help, so that we see investments across the board?…We’re seeing investments save money and improve lives. Why aren’t we making better choices?”
But the United Way’s Granger said the Legislature is “between a rock and a hard place” when it comes to investing in children.
“We’ve underfunded these services for decades – probably forever,” he said. “We’re in a situation where we’ve got these crises, and we have to fund the crises. So it’s really a difficult balance [lawmakers] have to determine, ‘Do we fund the crisis of the moment, or do we fund something that’s going to give us results in five, six, 15, 20 years?’
“And unfortunately, the crises are such that they compel many of us to say we’ve got to fund the crisis.”
By The News Service of Florida
Drought Means Pain At The Grocery Checkout
July 29, 2012
Economists say food prices are likely to rise in the coming months in the wake of record-breaking temperatures and drought in the major corn and soybean producing regions of the U.S.
Despite early predictions of a record corn crop, estimates have plummeted after a string of record-high temperature days and dry conditions stretching across the Midwestern farm states.
The USDA is predicting that meat prices will rise, with beef and veal expected to increase in price 3.5 to 4.5 percent during the remainder of the year. Beef prices are currently 6.9 percent higher than this time last year, with steak prices up 8.1 percent and ground beef prices up 7.3 percent. In the short term, beef prices are forecast to actually fall a bit, as increased feed prices force producers to decrease herd sizes and, in turn, increase the beef supply.
The USDA is forecasting an increase of 3.5 to 4.5 percent in chicken and turkey prices, also due to higher feed prices.
Consumers can expect to pay more for cheese and milk, with dairy prices seeing an anticipated 3.5 to 4.5 percent jump. Eggs are forecast to rise about 2 percent in price.
Cooking and vegetable oil, with soybeans as the main ingredient, are forecast by the USDA to rise 4 to 5 percent in price in 2012.
There’s one bright spot in the consumer price forecast from the USDA. Since last year at this time, fresh vegetable prices are down 3.6 percent, with potato prices down 3.4 percent, lettuce prices down 6.4 percent, tomato prices down 6.9 percent, and other fresh vegetable prices down 1.8 percent
“We need rain, and it doesn’t look like we’re going to get it,” says Iowa State University economist Dermot Hayes.
Pork and chicken prices will go up, as well as beef, milk and eggs, because corn and soybeans are key ingredients in animal feed.
Pictured top: Corn in Walnut Hill suffers the effects of drought earlier this year. The area has since received significant rainfall. NorthEscambia.com photo, click to enlarge.
Ride Benefits Tate Student Battling Rare Form Of Cancer (With Photo Gallery)
July 29, 2012
A benefit motorcycle ride was held Saturday for Halee Boyd, a 17-year old Tate High School student battling cancer.
Halee is fighting Alevola Rhabdomyosarcoma , ARMS for short, a rare cancer of the muscles that are attached to the bones. There are only a few hundred new cases per year in the United States. She is undergoing regular treatments at Shands Children’s Hospital at the University of Florida in Gainesville..
Saturday, Halee was along for the ride, her smile outshining her fluorescent green sunglasses as the motorcycles traveled from Tate High to Walnut Hill and back to a lunch at Heritage Baptist Church in Cantonment.
For a photo gallery, click here.
In April, Halee started having severe headaches, followed by blurry and double vision. Within 10 days her right eye was swollen, and the Boyds headed to a hospital emergency room. On April 29, they learned she had a tumor.
“It is still hard to hear myself say that she has cancer, the words catch in my throat and tears well up in my eyes and my heart stops. It’s not that it’s affected my life so much; it’s that from April 29, 2012, her life changed so drastically in a hallway in an emergency department,” her mother Mardi said in an earlier interview.
“I think it is just surreal,” Mardi added. “It all seems like a bad dream, I just get up each day and get through it and lean on my faith in God. I have been through some things in life that were bad, but those all made me strong enough to face this. Halee is incredibly strong and we are able to feed off of that.”
Halee does not currently have health insurance. Donations are also being accepted for Halee through the family’s church, Heritage Baptist Church, 3065 Highway 297A, Cantonment, (850) 478-3316.
Pictured top: Tate High student Halee Boyd on a motorcycle ride benefiting her medical expenses as it passes through Walnut Hill. Pictured inset: Halee talks to a young friend waiting for the start of the ride Saturday morning at Tate High School. NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.
Tate High photos contributed by Kristi Smith for NorthEscambia.com.
State Questions State Farm Insurance Rate Hike Request
July 29, 2012
State insurance officials and consumer advocates are pressing State Farm Florida Insurance Co. over a proposed 57.3 percent increase in rental property premiums when the company is still not writing any new business.
In addition, Florida’s insurance consumer advocate questioned the rationale behind the company’s request to ask policyholders to foot the bill for paying off a $750 million loan made to the Florida subsidiary by its parent company, State Farm Mutual.
The repayment will add an additional 8.5 percent to the parent company’s bottom line and comes in addition to a 16-percent profit margin.
State Farm representatives were before the Office of Insurance Regulation to request the rate hike on roughly 33,000 policies for the owners of rental property, including apartment buildings, or single homes that landlords rent out.
The company has about 470,000 total policies in the state, the bulk of which are residential homeowners’ policies. With few exceptions, State Farm has not written new policies in several years and has seen its exposure shrink. At one time in had more than 1 million policies and was the state’s largest property insurer.
“In addition to the general concerns of a nearly 58 percent rate increase, is the concern that State Farm has not given any indication that this rate increase will result in them writing any new policies,” said Brian Deffenbaugh, senior counsel for the Office of Insurance Consumer Advocate.
Despite the proposed increase, State Farm actuary Sara Frankowiak said she “was not aware of any plans” for the company to resume writing policies in the state, but is instead shoring up its financial position.
“We certainly have concerns for the impact that this kind of rate change has on our customers,” Frankowiak said. “But at the same time, we owe an obligation to all of our customers to make sure we are financially strong and able to pay when the storms come.”
In 2010, State Farm announced it would not renew 125,000 policies. The action came after Florida insurance officials denied a request for a 47 percent increase in homeowners premiums and the company threatened to exit the state altogether.
State Farm is also requesting a 14.9 percent increase in homeowner rates and nearly 28 percent increase in condominium insurance. Those rates are subject to separate rate filings.
Given the company’s presence in Florida, Florida Justice Association representative Reggie Garcia questioned why multiple rate hearings weren’t being conducted around the state, noting the lack of public participation.
“Why aren’t we having public hearings at least in three or four major urban areas on this issue? No one is here,” Garcia said. “That is your prerogative, but what you obligated to do is different from what you should do.”
In response, OIR General Counsel Belinda Miller said the agency used to travel around the state seeking comment but policyholders often didn’t show up. In addition, most of the legal issues between the state and State Farm have been settled in court so both parties are pretty sure where they stand on the issue.
The statewide 57.3 percent rate hike for rental property owners varies greatly depending on the territory. Rates in Duval County would increase from $695 to $1,065, an increase of 53.3 percent. Orange County rates would jump 60.7 percent, or $720. Miami-Dade County policies would increase 110 percent to $6,008. In Monroe County, where State Farm insures just four properties, the rates would rise from $4,857 to $14,411.
By The News Service of Florida
Photos: King Of The Jungle In Molino
July 29, 2012
Children at Highland Baptist Church presented “King of the Jungle” Sunday evening The children attended a daily music camp last week — Camp Quarternote — to prepare for the presentation.
Pictured: Scenes from “King of the Jungle” at Highland Baptist Church. Submitted photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
